Impressive press conference from Sturgeon. Right now you can count me as on board.
Contrary to the popular "she's happy on the status quo gravy strain" refrain I think she's going to pull it off or die trying.
Yes, the "she doesn't really want it" refrain was always daft.
As (imo) is the notion the Scots will keep demanding Indy Referendums every other week until there's a Yes. The truth is the next one (assuming she gets it in the next couple of years or so) is crunch time. If it's another No that's it for a long long time*. She will know this.
PLEASE nobody do the facetious "what, like a generation?" on me here. I can't even crack a polite smile at that anymore.
Nonsense. If it's another no she'll start agitating for a third referendum the very next day.
No. The choice would be to backburner it or shed a ton of votes and lose power. They'd choose the first.
History suggests otherwise.
Since you're so keen on history, how many Scottish indy referendums have there been in the last 315 years?
Your analogy would be more convincing were it not for the fact that we’re talking about an agreement made just a few years ago by the same government. We’re not talking about righting some great historical wrong: we’re talking about the Conservatives making signing this treaty their central manifesto pledge and now, a short time later, decrying the exact same treaty as fundamentally broken.
Just like when debating with @HYUFD when he is on a roll I get the feeling that you can state this transparently obvious truth to @Bart as often as you want and the essential truthness of it still won't get through to him.
To be charitable I hope he ( @Bart ) is actually saying that he gets this just that it is phenomenally bad politics conducted by phenomenally bad politicians.
Although he keeps on forgetting to add that last bit to his posts.
I respect BR’s arguments as being honest and reasoned.
For the edification of pb.com, I shall rank them from best to worst.
1) Cornwall (a proper flag, this. Not too fussy and wouldn't look the least bit daft as a national flag. Attractive and unusual colour combination.) 2) Kent (admirably simple and a nice image) 3) Devon (again, simple, elegant, quite convincing as a country flag) 4) Essex (bold, slightly aggressive) 5) Cheshire (I originally had this as top, which was a little partisan. I've tried to be more neutral about it. But I genuinely do like the colour combination and the overall effect.) 6) Somerset (simple and distinctive – loses marks for red and yellow – though there is sadly quiet a lot of red and yellow in subsequent designs) 7) Warwickshire (not just a bear, but a bear with, I don’t know, some sort of coat rack) 8) Yorkshire 9) Middlesex (nice flag, but clearly copied from Essex) 10) Northumberland (if you must do red and yellow do it simply) 11) Dorset (ditto) 12) Surrey (well this is bold and interesting, at least. Reminiscent of Croatia’s football kit) 13) Staffordshire (I like the layout and the emblem – would have been higher with a nicer colour scheme than red and yellow) 14) Suffolk 15) Westmorland 16) Lancashire 17) Durham 18) Derbyshire (fairly nice design – but blue and light green is even uglier than red and yellow. And if there is a white or yellow border around the green cross they should be bold enough to show it) 19) Gloucestershire (again, loses points for the blue/green) 20) Northamptonshire (brown and yellow is no better than red and yellow) 21) Worcesterhire (I like neither the colour scheme nor the wiggly lines, and pears are silly, but the sum is actually more pleasing than the parts) 22) Leicestershire 23) Berkshire (looks a bit more like an illustration from a child’s storybook than a flag) 24) Shropshire (Rather frighteningly busy but an agreeable enough overall impression) 25) Cumberland 26) Lincolnshire 27) Cambridgehire (possibly the dullest flag of the lot, but not ugly as such) 28) Nottinghamshire (loses points for Nottinghamshire’s irritating persistent obsession with Robin Hood, who is just as associated with several other counties – it is the baddy who came from Nottingham) 29) Buckinghamshire 30) Hertfordshire 31) Herefordshire (much, much too much brown) 32) Hampshire 33) Wiltshire (I’m not sure what those stripes are doing, not what that thing in the middle is) 34) Oxfordshire (far, far too busy – looks like it’s been designed by committee) 35) Huntingdonshire (quite simple, but also quite stupid) 36) Rutland 37) Sussex (I quite like the blue and yellow. But six tiny birds in a triangle?) 38) Norfolk (this is just plain uninspiring, and looks like someone creature has walked across it). 39) Bedfordshire (far too much going on, and none of it good)
Great list. Good work, Sir! This is why I come to PB
Noticeable that, the nearer you get to a county being an imaginable if tiny COUNTRY, the better and more plausible the flag as a flag of independence?
Cornwall has the best claim of any English county to being an independent country. And their flag is the most distinctive
After Cornwall, Kent and Essex have very distinct identities - the men of Kent etc, then Yorkshire at number 8… Northumberland 10
And the counties at the bottom are pretty much the counties you can least imagine having some separate national identity (with the possible exception of Norfolk): Beds, Sussex, Rutland, Hunts, Oxon, Wilts
I wonder if this is true of American states? The most likely to secede is probably Texas. With its distinctive Lone Star flag….
The question is how many you can identify by just looking at the flag.
I’d say, Cornwall Yorkshire Lancashire Essex Kent Warwickshire Maybe Hertfordshire
Also, but only by deduction, Leicestershire and Worcestershire.
For me, Cornwall, Devon, Essex, Kent, Cheshire, Lancashire, Northumberland, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Leicestershire. And I could have made a stab at Derbyshire through semi-familoarity and Nottinghamshire with the Robin Hood thing. And Rutland because of Ruddles beer. A bit of knowledge of county cricket helps.
There was at least one summer of Panini Stickers for County Cricket - might have been a one off. Shiny silver county badges. First time I'd seen the ashes trophy and had no concept of the scale...
Edit - apparently 1983
The ashes trophy is bigger than the European Cup - until you actually see it.
The ashes trophy isn't small. It's just far away. Other side of the world most of the time.
Back onto cosplay Thatcher's "Fuck the Bill" Bill, I don't know why BR is saying "this is what I proposed" when he has endlessly demanded they invoke Article 16. This goes straight past the A16 provision in the law and seeks to impose a settlement without negotiation. Which is the precise opposite of what A16 was intended to do.
The reality is simple - this government has demonstrated it is incapable of negotiation. So it doesn't want to invoke the A16 negotiation process as it knows it will only negotiate another settlement it doesn't understand. So fuck the bill, just impose a one-sided settlement and then claim to be an honest broker with all the people who now don't want to negotiate a coffee order with us.
Not that it will get through the House of Lords anyway. I can see the "Enemies of the State" headlines now.
It also has serious questions for the UK's integrity. In a few weeks, assuming the current mess isn't resolved, and I don't think it will be with the horror film clowns in charge as at present, I'd like to see polling on the wish for a border poll, and how the Alliance's policy in particular changes on the need for a border poll.
As long as the UK government does not impose a hard border in Ireland when it is removing the border in the Irish Sea, there will be no change in the Alliance's opposition to a border poll
Oh yes, no border at all. Good luck with that. Why do you think Mr Johnson put the one in the Irish Sea, and was so proud of it?
More generally, the Alliance aren'tr opposed to a border poll - they just don't support it. Not the same thing. And if HMG continues to rule NI from the sole point of view of keeping the DUP happy, there will be other reasons for Alliance to change their mind. For instance, wrecking the NI economy.
I attended an event at Westminster a couple of weeks ago where Steven Farry - alliance MP for North Down said they will not decide which way to jump on a border poll until it is announced- but they are happy to take part in discussions around planning one to avoid a Brexit type vote where people are promised anything and everything. They are ore open to a UI than many think.
There cannot be a UI without a border poll which requires the NI Secretary to back one and most probably Stormont to vote for one too. So without the Alliance voting for one there is no majority in the NI Assembly for one. A border poll ironically destroys the Alliance as it is the only main NI party which has almost equal support from Unionists and Nationalists.
If the Alliance took sides in a border poll it would become just another Nationalist or Unionist party
Their leader at Westminster says they will take a side but will not announce which until a poll is called.
The border poll requirement is set out in the GFA - deliberately vague but no Stormont vote required.
The moment the Alliance take a side in a border poll they are destroyed as a political party. No longer neutral they would either be a Nationalist party like SF and the SDLP so their Unionist voters would go to the UUP most likely or a Unionist party like the DUP or UUP so their Nationalist voters would go to the SDLP most likely.
There may therefore never be a border poll as it requires the NI Secretary to agree to one under the GFA and the NI Secretary won't and doesn't have to unless there is a clear majority at Stormont for one which there won't be as it is in the Alliance's interests to stay neutral and never have one
I believe in theory you are correct, but politically you are assuming too much.
You make the assumption that sectarianism trumps all else in the province. I do not believe that to be the case. To quote Bill Clinton "It's the economy stupid".
If the North Channel border was allowing NI businesses to thrive in the EU, and the removal of the protocol stops that dead in its tracks, and it might, it will be noted, and minds will change.
How will the removal of the North Channel border stop that?
The introduction of an Irish land border might stop it, but the removal of the Channel border is a different question, not the same one. You make it sound as if the Channel border is a positive to be desired in its own right, as opposed to the lack of an Irish land border being a positive to be desired.
The proposed legislation explicitly states no new regulations or checks can be done on the Irish land border. That means that the Good Friday Agreement is protected.
Because the EU are perfectly entitled to consider an invisible border at Dundalk under the Brexit deal, even it to protect sensibilities they do not put up armed security posts and barriers.
It isn't just a case of turning trucks away at Dundalk. Hauliers will not move goods if there is a possibility they will be returned to sender should paperwork be out of place at the point of destination.
And this isn't the EU being unreasonable it is their entitlement under Johnson and Frost's "oven ready" dog's dinner.
And under Liz Truss's proposed Bill there will be no new border checks at the NI/EU border so that invisible border is maintained.
Frost's deal was a version 1.0 to get Brexit done, its done now, we need to update it not keep going even though we now know what is working and what isn't.
It wasn't sold by Frost and Johnson as an "oven ready" committment only to avoid HMG's blushes to get "Brexit done", and once Brexit was done the deal expires, and the ECJ can go to hell.
In yours and Liz Truss's magical childlike world where Irish Prime Minister's are called "Tea Socks" your narrative might work. In the cut and thrust of International relationships we are heading towards a trade war.
I think memories have faded to just what a fecking mess we were in in 2019. There was no consensus in parliament. Time was short because of artificial rules. The EU were being shits (that's allowed, how they behave is up to them and it was important to show that Brexit was a bad idea).
We had to resolve the issues. The government did that. Yes the deal is imperfect. Yes the EU is being an arse over inspections between rUK and NI, far more so than for any other entry point. You can say why did the government lie about how good its deal was all along - it did what it had to do.
We now need to move forward and make changes. So what - every deal gets updated. Things change.
Utter nonsense.
You are relying on the goodwill of the EU not to stick security barriers between the North and South. Your idiot Government is telling the EU, "we have you over a barrel because we don't believe you will sacrifice peace in Ireland to fulfill your rights in a trade arrangements we agreed to. We dare you to set up barriers, we hold all the cards, f*** you!"
Your view and the pirate's narrative is absolutely absurd. We signed an international treaty we had no intentions of fulfilling? That being so, the EU are Neville Chamberlain waving his declaration at Heston Aerodrome, and we are...
International treaties are only broken by scoundrels or fools.
The EU who was prepared to invoke article 16 over vaccines? Or the EU who, in my opinion, are over zealously insisting on checks beween rUK and NI to the detriment of traders moving goods entirely within the UK? The UK will not impose trade barriers between NI and Eire and we don't believe the EU would either. The suggestions brought by the UK government have been described as reasonable by folk such as @Gardenwalker, no fan of Brexit or the Tory government.
I know we're unlikely to get any joined up thinking from this deeply unserious government, but what actually is their claim for Rwanda?
Is that Rwanda is so horrible, would-be users of people smugglers - almost 'entirely genuine asylum seekers escaping persecution - will choose torture or death instead?
Or is that Rwanda is kind, like Britain but with more sunshine? The asylum seekers will be well looked after - the people smugglers are doing a useful job?
It’s because it is safe, but fairly grim
If you’re an asylum seeker (which most of them are not, they are economic migrants) then you would be happy with safety alone. If they are not happy, then it was something else that attracted them all the way to the UK, it wasn’t “asylum” per se
Do it, Priti, do it
Most are asylum seekers whose claims - once processed - are granted.
Not true.
"The UK offered protection to 14,734 people (including dependants) in 2021, in the form of asylum, humanitarian protection, alternative forms of leave and resettlement. Resettlement accounted for 1,587 of those people (11%); this does not include the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, as the first eligible person was relocated under the scheme on 6 January 2022 (after the period referred to in this publication), and will be included in future releases. The number of people offered protection was 49% higher than the previous year, and similar to levels seen from 2015 to 2018."
"There were 48,540 asylum applications (main applicants only) in the UK in 2021, this is 63% more than the previous year. This is higher than at the peak of the European Migration crisis (36,546 applications in 2015-2016) and the highest number of applications for almost two decades (since 2003)."
Back onto cosplay Thatcher's "Fuck the Bill" Bill, I don't know why BR is saying "this is what I proposed" when he has endlessly demanded they invoke Article 16. This goes straight past the A16 provision in the law and seeks to impose a settlement without negotiation. Which is the precise opposite of what A16 was intended to do.
The reality is simple - this government has demonstrated it is incapable of negotiation. So it doesn't want to invoke the A16 negotiation process as it knows it will only negotiate another settlement it doesn't understand. So fuck the bill, just impose a one-sided settlement and then claim to be an honest broker with all the people who now don't want to negotiate a coffee order with us.
Not that it will get through the House of Lords anyway. I can see the "Enemies of the State" headlines now.
It also has serious questions for the UK's integrity. In a few weeks, assuming the current mess isn't resolved, and I don't think it will be with the horror film clowns in charge as at present, I'd like to see polling on the wish for a border poll, and how the Alliance's policy in particular changes on the need for a border poll.
As long as the UK government does not impose a hard border in Ireland when it is removing the border in the Irish Sea, there will be no change in the Alliance's opposition to a border poll
Oh yes, no border at all. Good luck with that. Why do you think Mr Johnson put the one in the Irish Sea, and was so proud of it?
More generally, the Alliance aren'tr opposed to a border poll - they just don't support it. Not the same thing. And if HMG continues to rule NI from the sole point of view of keeping the DUP happy, there will be other reasons for Alliance to change their mind. For instance, wrecking the NI economy.
I attended an event at Westminster a couple of weeks ago where Steven Farry - alliance MP for North Down said they will not decide which way to jump on a border poll until it is announced- but they are happy to take part in discussions around planning one to avoid a Brexit type vote where people are promised anything and everything. They are ore open to a UI than many think.
There cannot be a UI without a border poll which requires the NI Secretary to back one and most probably Stormont to vote for one too. So without the Alliance voting for one there is no majority in the NI Assembly for one. A border poll ironically destroys the Alliance as it is the only main NI party which has almost equal support from Unionists and Nationalists.
If the Alliance took sides in a border poll it would become just another Nationalist or Unionist party
Their leader at Westminster says they will take a side but will not announce which until a poll is called.
The border poll requirement is set out in the GFA - deliberately vague but no Stormont vote required.
The moment the Alliance take a side in a border poll they are destroyed as a political party. No longer neutral they would either be a Nationalist party like SF and the SDLP so their Unionist voters would go to the UUP most likely or a Unionist party like the DUP or UUP so their Nationalist voters would go to the SDLP most likely.
There may therefore never be a border poll as it requires the NI Secretary to agree to one under the GFA and the NI Secretary won't and doesn't have to unless there is a clear majority at Stormont for one which there won't be as it is in the Alliance's interests to stay neutral and never have one
I believe in theory you are correct, but politically you are assuming too much.
You make the assumption that sectarianism trumps all else in the province. I do not believe that to be the case. To quote Bill Clinton "It's the economy stupid".
If the North Channel border was allowing NI businesses to thrive in the EU, and the removal of the protocol stops that dead in its tracks, and it might, it will be noted, and minds will change.
How will the removal of the North Channel border stop that?
The introduction of an Irish land border might stop it, but the removal of the Channel border is a different question, not the same one. You make it sound as if the Channel border is a positive to be desired in its own right, as opposed to the lack of an Irish land border being a positive to be desired.
The proposed legislation explicitly states no new regulations or checks can be done on the Irish land border. That means that the Good Friday Agreement is protected.
Because the EU are perfectly entitled to consider an invisible border at Dundalk under the Brexit deal, even it to protect sensibilities they do not put up armed security posts and barriers.
It isn't just a case of turning trucks away at Dundalk. Hauliers will not move goods if there is a possibility they will be returned to sender should paperwork be out of place at the point of destination.
And this isn't the EU being unreasonable it is their entitlement under Johnson and Frost's "oven ready" dog's dinner.
And under Liz Truss's proposed Bill there will be no new border checks at the NI/EU border so that invisible border is maintained.
Frost's deal was a version 1.0 to get Brexit done, its done now, we need to update it not keep going even though we now know what is working and what isn't.
It wasn't sold by Frost and Johnson as an "oven ready" committment only to avoid HMG's blushes to get "Brexit done", and once Brexit was done the deal expires, and the ECJ can go to hell.
In yours and Liz Truss's magical childlike world where Irish Prime Minister's are called "Tea Socks" your narrative might work. In the cut and thrust of International relationships we are heading towards a trade war.
I think memories have faded to just what a fecking mess we were in in 2019. There was no consensus in parliament. Time was short because of artificial rules. The EU were being shits (that's allowed, how they behave is up to them and it was important to show that Brexit was a bad idea).
We had to resolve the issues. The government did that. Yes the deal is imperfect. Yes the EU is being an arse over inspections between rUK and NI, far more so than for any other entry point. You can say why did the government lie about how good its deal was all along - it did what it had to do.
We now need to move forward and make changes. So what - every deal gets updated. Things change.
Utter nonsense.
You are relying on the goodwill of the EU not to stick security barriers between the North and South. Your idiot Government is telling the EU, "we have you over a barrel because we don't believe you will sacrifice peace in Ireland to fulfill your rights in a trade arrangements we agreed to. We dare you to set up barriers, we hold all the cards, f*** you!"
Your view and the pirate's narrative is absolutely absurd. We signed an international treaty we had no intentions of fulfilling? That being so, the EU are Neville Chamberlain waving his declaration at Heston Aerodrome, and we are...
International treaties are only broken by scoundrels or fools.
The EU who was prepared to invoke article 16 over vaccines? Or the EU who, in my opinion, are over zealously insisting on checks beween rUK and NI to the detriment of traders moving goods entirely within the UK? The UK will not impose trade barriers between NI and Eire and we don't believe the EU would either. The suggestions brought by the UK government have been described as reasonable by folk such as @Gardenwalker, no fan of Brexit or the Tory government.
To be precise, I think the suggestions are reasonable but not the manner in which the government is going about it, ie by deception and rule-breaking.
The EU has been insufficiently flexible, but HMG are simply bad faith actors.
I know we're unlikely to get any joined up thinking from this deeply unserious government, but what actually is their claim for Rwanda?
Is that Rwanda is so horrible, would-be users of people smugglers - almost 'entirely genuine asylum seekers escaping persecution - will choose torture or death instead?
Or is that Rwanda is kind, like Britain but with more sunshine? The asylum seekers will be well looked after - the people smugglers are doing a useful job?
It’s because it is safe, but fairly grim
If you’re an asylum seeker (which most of them are not, they are economic migrants) then you would be happy with safety alone. If they are not happy, then it was something else that attracted them all the way to the UK, it wasn’t “asylum” per se
Do it, Priti, do it
Chances (last year) of an asylum seeker dying while seeking to cross the channel: 0.16% Chances (this YTD - assuming all seven are sent) of an asylum seeker being deported to Rwanda: 0.07%
I don't think these are numbers that have or will be a huge disincentive to people trying to get here via the channel.
Agreed. This only works if the government has the cullions to enforce it on everyone
I have my doubts, to put it mildly. But then again I am surprised they’ve shown the backbone to take it even this far
Doing it properly involves spending a lot of money on off shore processing facilities.
This is like a knock off version.
The Australian solution also involved tow backs which are a hell of a lot cheaper and more effective as a deterrent. No way do Johnson and Patel have the backbone for that.
Like he didn't have the honesty or balls for No Deal Brexit.
He's not even a proper softhead national populist strongman. Just a total fake all round.
My usually bleeding heart is somewhat hardened to the cause of the boat people by my visit, today, to the Armenian Genocide Museum
Oh my lord. My god. It is unutterably bleak
One and a half million people (possibly many more) deliberately and systematically killed, and their culture erased. At one point they were drowning orphans in the Euphrates en masse. 2,000 children herded together and driven into a river. Girls and women would be literally bound together, like sheaves of wheat, and tossed down a gorge. They were raped and tortured first, of course
So because you fancied living in England rather than Italy or France you broke the law and you might end up safe - but in Rwanda? Whatever
The lengths gone to suggest something a little stronger than "fancy living in England". Fact is, we take less than we should and this is about taking even fewer plus some gammon dogwhistle and creating problems for Labour in response. I don't for one second buy that it's about hitting the people smugglers. We could achieve that (amongst other things) by working with others to create safe and legal routes but with controls/limits. Trouble is, this takes skill, effort, empathy, vision and determination. Not Johnson's bag at all.
Strangely, I agree with you there: I'd be happy with safe and legal routes with control/limits.
However, I hear a lot from the other side on safe and legal routes - which would naturally increase the draw - but very little on controls/limits.
That is a fair point. But I'd hope in government they'd develop plans. ATM it's just let Johnson flap away and don't give a target by suggesting difficult alternatives.
Your analogy would be more convincing were it not for the fact that we’re talking about an agreement made just a few years ago by the same government. We’re not talking about righting some great historical wrong: we’re talking about the Conservatives making signing this treaty their central manifesto pledge and now, a short time later, decrying the exact same treaty as fundamentally broken.
Just like when debating with @HYUFD when he is on a roll I get the feeling that you can state this transparently obvious truth to @Bart as often as you want and the essential truthness of it still won't get through to him.
To be charitable I hope he ( @Bart ) is actually saying that he gets this just that it is phenomenally bad politics conducted by phenomenally bad politicians.
Although he keeps on forgetting to add that last bit to his posts.
I don't think doing whatever was required to get Brexit done, then revisiting the NI situation once we have a trade agreement and are post-Brexit is phenomenally bad politics, I think it is very smart politics
And there is the nub. There are those who think negotiating a policy and then moments later reneging on it is bad politics conducted by bad politicians; and then there are those who think it is strategic genius.
I think @kinabalu's explanation of how we got here is pretty obviously on the money.
Kinabalu is mostly right at first but goes into a blind alley at the end and is wrong at the end.
The problem is that too many people seek to let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now. I don't think the Withdrawal Agreement was a bad deal, I don't think it was a perfect deal, I think it was a good enough deal for then - but then is not now.
I never doubted there'd be problems post-Brexit, Brexit is a major reformation so of course there would be teething issues but lets not forget were we where three years ago. We were in a hysterical position where we were stuck in Article 50 limbo, unable to act, unable to get anything done, with people freaking out about all sorts of problems that were fictional. We had people on this site claiming that there'd be no strawberries on shelves at supermarkets, that there'd be no planes able to fly, that their partners could die as their medicine couldn't come across the border etc
I said then we needed to get out, find the teething problems, then fix them. The withdrawal agreement was good enough to do that, but now we're out, we need to fix any teething issues. If we'd remained trapped in Article 50 purgatory seeking to fix every hypothetical problem before we left, we'd never have left, which is of course what some wanted.
Only three years have passed since the Protocol wage agreed, but those three years might as well be a lifetime. We now know how Brexit is working, how the Protocol is working, we've been through a pandemic, and the GFA is imperilled. It is time to take action having left to fix the teething issues, while imagined problems that haven't transpired like people dying as medicine can't cross the border etc doesn't need to be dealt with.
So, how do you fix teething issues? If these are just teething issues, not fundamental flaws in the treaty, as your thesis requires, then they should be solvable by friendly and cooperative negotiation with relatively minor tweaks. So how come we’re in a situation where the government who signed the treaty is now intent on breaking it (while claiming it isn’t breaking it)?
The unavoidable conclusion is that either the Government who signed the treaty or the Government now has f***ed up. Except it’s the same Government.
You fix the teething issues by reaching a new agreement to replace the original one, a Protocol 1.1 or 2.0 if you wish, to replace the original one with the learnings we now have.
Its not the same Government, its the same people, but the Government of three years ago was a Government dealing with Article 50 trying to get the UK out of the EU which hysteria all around about all sorts of fictional problems.
The government we have now is a post-Brexit, post-TCA, post-pandemic Government that now knows what the real problems are and what is and isn't working, so the agreements can evolve as required.
Evolution never stops.
What is the best way of reaching a new agreement? Is it calm negotiation with the other party, respecting the existing agreement until a new one is sorted, or is it breaking the current agreement while pretending that you’re not breaking the current agreement?
(Also, if there was hysteria and fictional problems back then, why did that force the Govt into a premature subpar agreement? Is the Govt so weak that some misinformed commentators in the press can stop their actions?)
The best way is to try calm negotiations first (done) and if calm negotiations fail (they have) then break the agreement to fix the problems.
The agreement wasn't subpar, it was good enough for then. As I said, don't let the idealised perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now.
You wouldn't expect all software released in 2019 to still be running on the exact same code, never to be patched, so why would you expect that of international agreements? Just like a major new piece of software, Brexit was released, it was inevitably going to have some bugs but that is OK, we just need to use Parliament to patch them as they are identified.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough for now.
The EU has continued to negotiate. They have continued putting forward new ideas. They aren’t breaking the terms of the agreement by introducing new legislation. The EU’s approach appears to have support from a majority of NI Assembly members. I find it hard to view calm negotiations as having failed. There are issues and that’s why negotiations are and should continue.
International treaties and software are different things. By and large, history will show international treaties get updated much, much, much less often than software. Of course, Parliament should patch bugs as they go along… while respecting the treaties they signed up to and the other signatories thereto.
I’d be happy if the Government was getting on with fixing the bugs in Brexit, because exports have collapsed, common science funding through the Horizon programme has ended (an area the UK always got more money out than we put in) and we’re still faffing around with stamps in passports. Instead, the Government is talking about power ratings on hoovers and bringing back Imperial measures. A Government that fixed bugs would be highly preferable to a Government concerned with Brexit theatre and Daily Mail headlines.
The perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. We weren’t given “good”. The Government negotiated a deal that put a border in the Irish Sea, while the Prime Minister went on telly and flatly denied this was the case. The Government should either have been honest about what they were signing or worked out a different deal. What they’re doing now is complaining about a fundamental component of what they agreed to. They lied about the deal then, they’re lying about the legislation now.
Comments
The EU has been insufficiently flexible, but HMG are simply bad faith actors.
He's not even a proper softhead national populist strongman. Just a total fake all round.
International treaties and software are different things. By and large, history will show international treaties get updated much, much, much less often than software. Of course, Parliament should patch bugs as they go along… while respecting the treaties they signed up to and the other signatories thereto.
I’d be happy if the Government was getting on with fixing the bugs in Brexit, because exports have collapsed, common science funding through the Horizon programme has ended (an area the UK always got more money out than we put in) and we’re still faffing around with stamps in passports. Instead, the Government is talking about power ratings on hoovers and bringing back Imperial measures. A Government that fixed bugs would be highly preferable to a Government concerned with Brexit theatre and Daily Mail headlines.
The perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. We weren’t given “good”. The Government negotiated a deal that put a border in the Irish Sea, while the Prime Minister went on telly and flatly denied this was the case. The Government should either have been honest about what they were signing or worked out a different deal. What they’re doing now is complaining about a fundamental component of what they agreed to. They lied about the deal then, they’re lying about the legislation now.